290D - Management of Data, Processes, and Services

Enterprise systems are large-scale software applications to support data management, business processes, information flows, reporting, and data analytics in a complex organization. An enterprise system is typically based on a combination of one or more data management systems, one or more business process management systems, one or more reporting systems to support business intelligence, along with other systems (e.g., web access, authentication). The two key components of an enterprise system are management of data and management of business processes. A business process (a.k.a. workflow) consists of a collection of activities, services, resources, and often human performers assembled together to accomplish business goals (admitting a student, emergency treatment in a hospital, reimbursing a business trip, granting a construction permit, establishing a law, etc.). In current software applications, design and development of software systems for managing business processes and data are still in the same category as arts & crafts rather than sound engineering practice, especially for supporting business processes. This course will explore and discuss key technical concepts and methodologies in the general topic of modeling and management of workflow. This includes, for examples, how to design and analyze workflow models, and how to manage workflow executions. In particular, we will examine the new data-centric approach (including artifact-centric approach) to workflow system design for business process management.